I have been thinking a lot about money these days and the various challenges that come along with monetizing the yoga practice and supporting oneself as a yoga teacher. In the age where many students feel that the cost of yoga classes, workshops and trainings is outside of their budget, studio owners everywhere are struggling to keep their doors open and teachers are often unable to pay their bills. So it is easy to say that yoga is too expensive, except that running a studio is certainly not cheap. Money is a really hot topic and so I definitely want to tread lightly on the subject lest it come across that I am being critical because I do not feel that way. Not at all. I am really thinking deeply on the this very difficult and personal subject.

Recently I offered a webinar at a sliding scale (in fact, I am offering all of my webinars that way this year) and a colleague of mine told me that I was "devaluing the teachings" by making them so affordable. Another colleague told me that I was "ruining my brand" by teaching at a donation studio and that by teaching locally at a discounted rate I was cheapening my image. I am always sensitive to this kind of feedback so I really gave the comments a lot of thought to see if I had some kind of blind spot or self-esteem issue that was operative of which I was unaware.

As I thought about it, I wondered where is the value on the teaching placed? Am I placing the value on what you have to pay or on what I might earn from the time and energy expended to offer a course? How does one value something like yoga? Does the money received and/or paid determine the value? Is there a reasonable way to put a price tag on the inner value we all receive from great instruction? If I pay more does that mean I am paying better attention or that I value the teaching more? If I charge more does that mean I have self-worth and if I charge less does that mean I do not believe in myself? And if someone is wealthy then $50 is a drop in the bucket of their monthly yoga budget but if someone is less financially solvent then $50 might be a proportionally huge amount of money.

The first workshop I ever did with John Friend was in February 2000 and Desiree Rumbaugh, his host, called me up and said there was a spot that had opened up and did I want it? If yes, it would cost $450 for the 5-day intensive. So I tell this story now because at the time Kelly and I had exactly $450 dollars in our checking account and truth be told, it belonged to the people we owed it to for a car payment, rent, etc. I will always remember being at that workshop and parking my 1993 Toyota pick up truck in a parking lot filled with Lexus, Mercedes and BMW's in Scottsdale, Arizona. My point being is that we all paid $450 but the cost of that $450 was not the same for everyone in attendance. For me it was 100% of my money. For other folks the tuition represented a much smaller percentage of their financial resources. (And as anyone knows who travels for workshops the tuition is only part of it- there is travel expenses, lodging, food, etc. to make the journey as well as the days of not earning money while you are in training.)

The finances of yoga training gets further complicated now that we live, teach and practice in a global yoga community because $100 in USA is not the same $100 as it might be in Mexico or India or in other regions.

And of course, we all have our financial needs, our families needs and our own personal boundaries to explore and to uphold when it comes to the amount of money we need and want. Each one of us is absolutely free to charge whatever we want for the services we are offering as teachers and studios. Of course, as students we have to be real and honest about what we can and can not afford and also whether or not the trainings are "worth it" to us relative to the percentage of our budget that the tuition for any program represents. I have no issue with people charging a lot for what they offer. I look at some things I would love to do and while it may be more than I want to pay, I am in no way upset they are asking for it or getting it. That is the beauty of capitalism, I suppose.

And the longer I go about teaching the more I am aware of the time and energy it requires to have something of real value to offer. It looks like a yoga teacher is being paid for the time they are in front of the class "teaching" but the teacher is actually being paid for the time he or she spends practicing, studying, reflecting, learning, integrating their experiences on and off the mat. All of that inquiry behind the scenes informs the presentation called "class" where the monetary exchange happens.

I was thinking about how even with all of these complexities there are still some very affordable ways to enjoy great yoga instruction. First is home practice with a great book like Light On Yoga or Yoga Resource. Home practice is one of the best values around as it costs you only your time and energy. There are also so many great online resources like Yogaglo where for only $18/month you can take as many yoga classes as you want. And if you end up in someone's class you do not like, no big deal- press stop and just pick another! There are lots of other online resources as well, not to mention a plethora of DVD's, podcasts, CD's and iPhone apps offering a way to practice yoga affordably. (Of course, these require a computer which is an expense and is not available in some areas of the world.)

I was thinking about my own "Schedule of Services" as a yoga teacher these days and how I have little free snippets called Yoga Tips that I have started offering, a free blog like this one, and I offer a few group practices locally for free for the fun of being together in the name of yoga. I teach some local classes that are by donation and some that the studio sets a fee for. I have classes on yogaglo. I offer webinar programs that are set up on a sliding scale. And I offer workshops, intensives and trainings that are more specialized, more time-consuming and more professionally-targeted and they still come in generally lower than the national average but are certainly higher-priced than public classes. And I have some minimum financial requirements I request to pack a suitcase and leave home for a weekend or more. So, it's a range.

A marketing expert once told me that I should market my teaching work as the BMW of yoga trainings and I think now I might rather be a Honda. But I digress. My point in all of that is to say that I completely get that yoga is pricing itself out in some ways and this great practice is often cost-prohibitive for many people. And I also get that teaching is more competitive than ever and studios are struggling more than ever to stay open. I suppose I do not have any conclusions or definitive answers for anyone else- I am simply trying to offer a variety of programs at different price points as a way to offer the teachings as widely as possible and I would love all of us yoga teachers to have financial freedom to pursue what matters most. So there is my dream- students who have wide access to yoga and yoga teachers who can afford to buy houses, put their kids through college and pay for health insurance. Is that too much to ask?

At any rate, Yoga Tips continues with a short clip on how to teach and practice putting active weight through the top of your head in headstand. Enjoy.

11 comments:

Thank you Christina! As a young person who works at a non-profit (and still paying off my car, my college, you name it!)who teaches yoga for fun, I am routinely saddened by my own inability to attend yoga workshops and classes. I appreciate that you are trying to bring yoga to those of us who, while not destitute, cannot afford it otherwise. And I think being a Honda of yoga is just as marvelous as being a BMW. And just may affect all of us a bit more personally. Thank you!

Thank you for this post. I am always back and forth with the same questions you asked. Money seems to be an exchange of energy these days. There is judgement when something is free and judgement when it's priced like a BMW.

I find my rational mind wanting to "check the facts" on what previous yogis did these last 3000 years. Did they worry about attending workshops, getting a certificate, or buying those cool pants/mat? I don't know for certain, but my guess is that they took a lifetime to learn it all and paid the price of patience.-nina perales

I am not a yoga teacher and don’t intend to ever charge money for teaching a yoga class. However, as I move further in my journey as a practitioner, I notice that there is a natural progression with the way the yoga community is set up for me to take a teacher training. If people want to continue to learn and grow in their practice, teacher trainings become the most obvious and even encouraged next step. So I might end up doing a teacher training some day--even though I have no interest in becoming a teacher. Others probably start out just wanting to learn but end up trying to make a living teaching yoga. Lots of yoga teachers makes for a very tough environment for making a living teaching yoga.

What if there were a more defined “track” for serious students? Instead of taking one (wonderful!) workshop after another, there was some progression in workshops or even practitioner certifications? Teachers could obtain practitioner certifications as well so that some students might be more advanced practitioners than some teachers.

The goal here is to encourage the journey without the journey being so directed towards teacher training. Maybe there are other ways to achieve that goal...

@Dan- I think that is a great idea in a lot of ways. The Anusara Immersions were great programs for practitioners who wanted to deepen their studies and learn more. I am offering more Intensives and longer format programs that are not teacher training for that reason.

Sign up for my newsletter!

At Ladybird Lake

Purvottanasana

eka pada koundinyasana

A Day in the Life Video

eka pada koundinyasana 2

On Practice

“Who is an authentic seeker, but someone who has understood that there is nothing else to do but practice? Enthusiastic or discouraged, he or she continues, no matter what."-Lee Lozowick

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing, or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated, precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, the sense of one’s being, the satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God. Practice means to perform over and over again, in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire." - Martha Graham

"Abhyasa (practice) is a dedicated, unswerving, constant, and vigilant search into a chosen subject pursued against all odds in the face of repeated failures, for indefinitely long periods of time."- B.K.S. Iyengar

Visvamitrasana

Twisting Lunge

revolved warrior

Parighasana Variation

Mayurasana

Eka Pada Galavasana

Ubhaya Padangusthasana Variation

Take My Classes on Yogaglo

Yogi Ramsuratkumar and Lee Lozowick

Buy My New Book

Buy My First Book

Videos on YouTube

Followers

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth." ~Dan Rather